'No Evidence Establishes UAPA Case, Links With Banned Groups' : Bhima-Koregaon Accused Shoma Sen Argues For Bail In Supreme Court

Former Nagpur University professor and Bhima Koregaon-accused Shoma Sen defended her bail plea in the Supreme Court on Thursday (December 8) by alleging a lack of evidence connecting her to the case under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, or establishing her purported links with the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist).A bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Augustine George Masih was hearing a special leave petition filed by Sen through Advocate-on-Record Nupur Kumar challenging a January 17 order of the Bombay High Court, by which it directed her to approach the special court trying her case, for bail. Sen has been lodged in jail since June 2018 for offences under the anti-terror statute after being arrested in connection with the 2018 caste-based violence that broke out at Bhima Koregaon in Pune, and for having alleged links with CPI (Maoists). The top court issued notice in Sen's special leave petition in May last year, along with co-accused Jyoti Jagtap's bail plea.Right at the outset of the hearing, Senior Advocate Anand Grover, appearing for the arrested professor, invoked the precedent set by the Supreme Court in the KA Najeeb case, underscoring the right of constitutional courts to grant bail to individuals accused under the UAPA, notwithstanding the bar contained in Section 43D (5), in order to protect their right to a speedy trial guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. Sen's advanced age, ill health, and prolonged incarceration were factors that made her case for being released on bail stronger, the senior counsel argued.Central to Grover's contention was that Sen's plea was squarely covered by the court's Vernon Gonsalves judgment, that was handed out by a bench of Justices Bose and Sudhanshu Dhulia last year. In this case, co-accused Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira were granted bail by the Supreme Court after almost five years in custody, The court, other than taking into account the length of incarceration, also held that the seriousness of the allegations alone could not be a ground to deny bail and justify their continued detention. Notably, it was held that a plea for bail under Section 43D (5) would not pass muster of the prima facie test envisioned in Watali without “at least surface-analysis of the probative value of evidence” and if the court is not satisfied of the worth of the probative value of such evidence.Building on this legal framework, Grover scrutinised the evidentiary basis against Sen, sequentially guiding the court through the various documents and witness statements that formed part of the prosecution's case, all the while highlighting deficiencies in it. In particular, the senior counsel pointed to the absence of any incriminating evidence on Sen's own electronic devices, questioning the reliability and probative value of unsigned documents recovered from co-accused persons. He argued, "These are not letters or emails, just unsigned documents in Rona Wilson's computer. Another co-accused. Nothing is found from Shoma Sen's computer. Nothing. There's no corroboration. Besides, these are planted documents. That matter is pending before the Bombay High Court. I'm not even touching that aspect here." Grover was referring to another petition filed by Rona Wilson, presently pending before the Bombay High Court, seeking a Special Investigation Team probe based on a forensic science report which alleged that incriminating documents were planted in his laptop through a malware without his knowledge.Other than this, Grover challenged the National Investigating Agency (NIA) characterising Sen as a member of a the far-left outfit, CPI(Maoist), citing a lack of substantive evidence supporting this claim. "There's a statement of a witness. He says Shoma Sen is working along with intellectual groups on the problems of women and students. There is no mention of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Nothing. This is the only thing he said when asked about Sen.""Besides, what is so objectionable about what is being attributed to Shoma Sen?" Grover asked, pointing out that the allegations covered, among other things, her membership of a fact-finding team constituted to investigate a local political murder and her role in working with leftist student organisations. The senior counsel argued -"If she were a member of a legal organisation doing something proscribed under the law, then penal consequences would be attracted...But suppose, as they are alleging, that she was doing the constitutional work of putting ideas in the public domain, right or wrong, left-wing or right-wing, how is this illegal? The link has to be with terrorist work. The type of involvement here is so scanty, that there is no case. It's unfortunate. An ailing, old woman..."Notably, the senior counsel also alleged that the link between the speeches at Elgar Parishad commemorating the Battle of Koregaon Bhima and the violence that broke out in the region was tenuous. "At the Bhima Koregaon...

'No Evidence Establishes UAPA Case, Links With Banned Groups' : Bhima-Koregaon Accused Shoma Sen Argues For Bail In Supreme Court

Awstika Das

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